LIAM WASN’T SURE HOW HE’D gotten so lucky. It had to be something from a previous life because he hadn’t done anything good enough in this one to merit this kind of karma. Breathing in the sweet scent of the clover, he followed Andy as they traipsed across the field toward the shed on the far side of the property.

He’d debated giving her an out. Telling her he had work to do and staying out of her hair for the day. He’d already checked in with work, but he could come up with something to do. What would be the fun in that? He’d watched her run through everyone else on the farm and their jobs before finally coming to—what looked from the outside, at least—the painful realization that she’d be stuck with him shadowing her.

A better man would step aside and make things easier. But if watching the way her Lycra-clad body moved as they did yoga had taught him anything, it was that he wasn’t a better man, and he had precious little interest in becoming one. The fact that he’d caught her checking him out as well cemented his impulses. He planned to get as close to her as she’d let him, figure out what made her tick and then find a way to push her buttons the good way. Or in whatever way she was up for.

He’d spent a fair bit of time rationalizing what he wanted. Nothing said he couldn’t hook up with Andy while he was on vacation. It’s what people did. Maybe not him usually, but other people. The looks she’d given him that morning when he caught her checking out his ass readjusted his impression of her wanting more. For a moment, she looked like she’d be happy to get her hands on him—or hell, sink her teeth into him—and he was more than happy to oblige.

It would be easier to convince himself he hadn’t misread the situation if she’d talk to him instead of keeping up her angry march across the field. Angry might be the wrong word. Determined seemed like a better fit. Andy Stuart was nothing if not determined.

The grass was noticeably drier than it had been that morning, which was a good thing because it was long enough to hit him at mid-calf and the idea of spending the day in damp pants held no appeal. The morning mist had burned off, but every few steps he saw a clump of grass with a spider web suspended between the stalks. Tiny drops of dew clung to the delicate strands like crystal beads on a necklace. It was completely ordinary and so beautiful he stopped for a moment to get a closer look.

The webs were almost impossibly symmetrical and so intricately constructed. He couldn’t imagine how long it had taken the spider to complete its masterpiece and how easy it would be for him to destroy them all just by tromping through the field and swinging his arms. For a moment, it took him back to bombed-out villages and buildings razed to the ground. People’s life work destroyed in an instant. He pushed back against the thought, gently nudging the memory out of the way so it didn’t intrude into his conscious thoughts and color his entire day.

It had taken him a long damn time to learn how to do that—how to push back a memory so it didn’t steal his present. It had gotten easier with practice but it hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning, the memories rolled him, knocking him on his ass. He’d worked hard to find something resembling control and even then it was nothing more than an illusion some days.

Stretching out a fingertip, he gingerly touched one of the blades of grass supporting the web and watched the drops of dew dance in the sunlight. Finding the beauty in ordinary things was one of the parts he missed the most about his reconstructed life. He could hardly handle the bare necessities when Gabe hired him to work at Southerland Security. The job helped save him but focus on work hadn’t left much space for anything else. Maybe the time at Sourwood could help him as much as Jake.

Maybe he ought to be satisfied with what he had and stop looking for more.

He glanced up and saw Andy watching him. She’d shielded her eyes with her hand, limiting his ability to read her expression, but her lips curved in a way that made him want to run his thumb over them. To taste them and see if she was as sweet as he imagined. Innocent idealist to his sullied realist. Because he was at heart an asshole, he pulled his hand back to swat at the web, catching himself when he heard her gasp. Jesus, he had to have evolved into something more than a boy who pulled the wings off butterflies or burned ants with a magnifying glass. Surely by now he was more than that.

“What are we doing?” he asked, lowering his hand and closing the distance between them in a few strides.

Andy stayed frozen in place, still staring at the spot where he’d stopped to look at the web. She didn’t move until he was practically on top of her, crowding her, making it seem like his question was about more than their job for the day. She sucked in a breath, and he saw her steady herself. It was as if pieces moved in place behind her eyes and when her gaze met his, she was cool and in control again.

“Making soap,” she said, pivoting with the grace of a dancer and heading for the small shed.

Whatever he’d thought they’d be doing, soap making sure as hell hadn’t been on the short list. He’d assumed they’d be planting something or dealing with the animals. But if the lady wanted to make soap, he’d be the best damn soap maker he could be. And then maybe she’d look at him like she had over yoga instead of like he’d disappointed her.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

She shot him a glance, and he took comfort in the fact that her smirk was firmly back in place. Following her into the small building, he waited for her to flip on the light before he closed the door behind them. It was a single room, surprisingly clean considering the worn-out exterior, with long work tables running down two of the walls. There were shelves filled with assorted bins and five-gallon plastic buckets and a cart like the ones they sometimes had in mess halls to stack trays. A small chest freezer stood off to one side and there was a gas burner with one of those small tanks usually used to power a grill. A closed metal wardrobe-looking thing took up the last space on the wall, and there was a small loft that appeared to be used for storing boxes and stuff.

“Wash your hands,” she said, scrubbing up at an ancient-looking utility sink. “And then you can get the goat milk out of the freezer.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He crowded in behind her, using the opportunity to breathe in the clean scent of lavender that clung to her. She sucked in a breath, letting it out as she reached for a towel and squeezed past him.

“Bring the milk over here and empty it into this pot.” She set a big stainless-steel stock pot on the counter with a little more force than necessary.

Smiling to himself because he couldn’t seem to get past riling her up, he dried his hands and opened the chest freezer. He didn’t know what he’d expected but it wasn’t the stacks of trays full of cloudy white ice cubes he found.

“Why do you freeze the milk?” he asked, carrying as many trays as he could without risking dropping them. The cold against his forearms made him tighten his grip. “Why not just use fresh?” They milked twice a day. He could go to the barn that minute and probably get all the milk she needed.

“It changes the fat molecules and slows down the reaction time with the lye. Put it all in here and then put these on.”

She laid a pair of leather work gloves, goggles, and a paper mask on the counter. He’d never thought of soap making as dangerous work, but she’d mentioned lye. He’d seen firsthand the damage it could do when it was used to torture victims in parts of the world he’d just as soon forget existed. The burns to their bodies were horrific. One poor bastard died when it ate through his esophagus.

“Let me help,” he said, suddenly needing to put himself between Andy and the white powder she was measuring onto a scale.

She glared at him, her eyes distorted by the goggles but not so much he couldn’t tell she thought he’d lost it.

“You are helping.” She spoke slowly, the words muffled against the mask she wore. “Putting the milk into the pot is exactly what I need you to do. And you’re not going near this stuff without your gear on.”

He hadn’t been thinking about anything but keeping her from getting burned. He’d been so caught up in putting himself between her and danger, he hadn’t even bothered to put on the gloves. She kept her gaze pinned to him, watching him like he was a bomb that might go off, as he took a step back toward the ice cube trays. She didn’t turn back to measuring the lye until he twisted the first ice cube tray, popping the milk free and dropping the frozen chunks into the pot.

There was something wrong with him—something broken inside—that made smashing spider webs acceptable and made him think about torture in the middle of a souped-up arts and crafts project. One more stellar example of why he and the peace-loving hippy farmer would never work. Not that he’d been looking for anything other than a temporary hookup, but still, it would be nice not to default to Rambo all the damn time. He finished emptying the trays, setting them in the sink before he donned his protective gear.

“Stand back,” she said, waiting for him to comply before she gingerly emptied the lye into the pot with the milk.

He clenched his fists against the rough leather of the gloves so he wouldn’t rip the long metal spoon out of her hand. She gave the mixture a few slow stirs before she glanced up to meet his gaze.

“Are you okay?”

He could see the puzzled crease in the center of her forehead and knew she was trying to work out what he’d been thinking. There was no way he was telling her. Not a chance.

“Lye is dangerous,” he said, restating the obvious but unable to say what he meant or to move on without acknowledging it.

“I know,” she said, looking like she was trying to decide whether to be pissed at him or not.

Perfect.

“You know, I’ve done this before,” she said, her tone softening a fraction.

“I’ve seen what it can do.” He motioned to the sealed container that held the lye.

She swallowed hard and he hated himself for bringing that evil into her place.

“I’ll be careful.”

He nodded, feeling like an idiot and not trusting himself to say anything else without making things worse. Forgetting for a moment about the paper mask, he blew out a breath and fogged up his goggles.

“Would you like to stir?” asked Andy, clearly taking pity on him.

He didn’t bother taking the time to answer. He simply reached for the spoon handle. His pulse kicked down a couple of notches when she took a step away from the pot.

“Go slow so it doesn’t splash, but keep it moving so the milk melts and there aren’t any clumps of lye. I’ll go melt the fats.”

She left him stirring the pale-yellow mixture. The lye reacting with the milk made it change color and the heat from the reaction was melting the icy chunks. While he kept the mixture moving around in the pot, he watched her pull a jug of green oil out of the metal cabinet, along with a big white tub. She twisted the handle of the tank of gas and lit the burner with one of those strikers he remembered from chemistry class. Measuring the oil into a pot smaller than the one he was using, she set it on the burner and then added heaping spoonfuls of a thick white paste that looked like shortening and smelled like coconuts.

It didn’t take long for the two things to melt together and in a few minutes, she was holding the pan of melted fat over the milk and lye mixture.

“Ready?” she asked and he nodded, eager to see how she was going to turn all the disparate liquids into a solid bar of soap.

“Keep stirring.” She slowly emptied the contents of her pot into his while he mixed them together.

Nothing happened. The mixture turned a deeper color from the olive oil, but it still didn’t look anything like soap.

Andy plugged in a big metal industrial-looking immersion blender before nudging him with her hip to get out of the way. He was tempted to hold his ground so she’d do it again, but he wasn’t about to screw around next to the lye mixture.

Not sure what he expected to see, he watched as she blended the mixture. After what seemed like forever but was probably closer to ten minutes, she started to pull the blender across the surface of the mixture, dropping it down again between passes. After four or five times across, he started to see what looked like a trail following the blender across the surface.

“There,” she said, motioning toward the mixture with her head. “We have saponification.”

“Is it contagious?”

She laughed, a clear sound that made him want to come up with ways to get her to do it again. Stripping off her protective gear, she set it and the blender to the side while he followed suit. The metal tab on the mask had left a red mark across the bridge of her nose, and before he thought better of it, he reached out to rub his finger over it. She froze, her eyes going wide, but she didn’t step back or pull away. With his thumb, he followed the mark made by her goggles, not stopping until his palm cupped her cheek.

He should pull his hand away. It was the sensible thing to do. Drop his hand and pretend none of this happened. He’d get right on that. Except she tipped her head ever so slightly, leaning into his touch, and he pretty much lost his ability to think. For a moment, they stood, facing each other, barely a step between them while she rested her soft cheek against his palm and he tried to work out in his head what the hell he thought he was doing. His attention drifted to her lips and he started to lean in, pulled by an irresistible urge to find out what she tasted like.

But then she blinked, breaking the spell. “We need to get the soap into the molds before it starts to set.”

He pinned her with his gaze as he lowered his hand. “We’re going to revisit this.” He had no idea what this was or what he was hoping it turned into. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to ignore it, to pretend there was nothing between them.

He saw her swallow, the barest hint of a smile curving her lips, and then she nodded and the vise wrapped around his chest loosened, and he could breathe again. She turned away from him and he managed to resist the temptation to reach for her, settling for following her to the large metal cabinet. She reached inside and pulled out a stack of clear plastic trays, each with a half dozen square impressions complete with an indented sprig of sourwood flowers set in the center of a small circle. He recognized the shape as the inverse of the soap he’d found in his small bath. He took the stack of molds from her and carried them to the counter while she grabbed two big plastic pitchers.

“Here,” she said, holding a pitcher and a terry cloth hand towel out to him. “Fill the molds right to the top. Be careful not to drip or pour too fast and make bubbles.”

While he watched, she dipped her pitcher into the soap mixture, dragging it against the side of the pot to knock off the excess. With speed born of repetition, she filled one of the trays without spilling a drop. Certain he was on the verge of making a colossal mess, he mimicked her movements, filling his pitcher and starting on an empty tray of molds. He made it to the second impression before he dripped all over the tray, but by the time he got to the end he’d at least started to get the hang of it and he hadn’t spilled more.

They worked in silence side by side until the pot of soap was empty and they had rows of filled molds stretched out in front of them. Andy took his pitcher and put it in the pot with hers before dumping all of them in the sink. He opened his mouth to say something about what happened earlier, but she turned her back on him so quickly it made him think she was avoiding him. He let her get away with it for the moment but he found himself feeling surprisingly determined about confronting her later.

“How long do you think you’re going to stay?” she asked, facing the sink.

“I don’t know.”

When in doubt, might as well go with as close to the truth as possible. He’d already been there longer than he intended. The way things were going, he might stay until he was cleared to go back to Southerland Security. Unless it was a hardship for her. He liked messing with her. Hell, it was one of his new favorite things, but he didn’t want to cause her any real trouble or expense. The thought pushed another question he had to the surface of his mind.

“I’d like to stay until Jake’s in a better place. Emotionally,” he hurried to add so she didn’t think he was dissing the farm. He had more good things than bad to say about what she was doing with the farm. A lot more good. The hippie tree-hugger thing still bugged him but he could see the good that the farm—and Andy—did for the people staying there. “I’m happy to pay my way. I don’t expect you to put me up for free.”

“No.” The word came out harsh and sharp with a kind of finality that felt like overkill for nothing more than hospitality. Andy stood straighter, squaring her shoulders, everything in her posture projecting big damn walls she clearly had no intention of letting him breach.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, dusting off his underused diplomacy. “I just don’t want to be a burden. This is a big place. I’m not sure how you pay for everything, but you can’t keep it running on lettuce and soap sales.”

In the beginning, he’d wondered if she got some kind of grant money to keep the farm going. Supporting a half dozen or more adults couldn’t come cheap. Jake told him, in addition to room and board, Sourwood Farm paid him a small stipend. It made sense. Working for room and board was an okay temporary solution, but if the vets at the farm were going to reintegrate into society, they were going to need money to do it. More than their military disability pensions paid. Spending six months or a year at the farm gave them a way to ease back into civilian life and if they were careful with their money, do it with a bit of a nest egg. But it would cost Andy a small fortune and that was before she even touched the farm expenses—mortgage, equipment, vet bills, and feed.

Even if her sales blew away his projections, she had to be bleeding money. He didn’t want to add to the list of people she took care of, but it was more than that. He wanted to help. He had some money set aside. Thanks to Southerland Security, his investment portfolio looked better than he’d ever imagined. Because of his buddy Gabe’s company, he had an investment portfolio and not just a mountain of debt. He could think of a lot worse things to do with his money than help guys who hadn’t been as fortunate as him. He just had to figure out a way to explain all that to Andy without her bristling up like a porcupine.

“We do just fine with our lettuce and soap,” she said, closing the cabinet and pushing past him to get to the sink.

He felt the warmth of her body, the heat probably fueled by her anger, as she moved past him. A simple brush of her shoulder against his arm shouldn’t have the effect on him it did. It didn’t make sense for him to want to wrap himself around her just because she nudged him. His body seemed to have a mind of its own where she was concerned. He had to stop himself from leaning toward her, settling for turning to face her back as she rearranged things in the sink.

“I’m sure you do.” It was lying for a good cause. That had to be allowed. “I’m grateful you let me stay here and even more grateful for what you’re doing for my friend,” he said, leading with a thank-you before he got to the meat of what he wanted to say. “Hell, for all the vets.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.”

Her shoulders sagged and he closed the last few steps between them, not sure what he’d done wrong but needing to fix it.

“Hey, I didn’t mean...” He took her arm, gently shifting her body to face him. The rest of the words died on his tongue when he saw the flash of sadness in her gaze. He had no idea what Andy had to be sad about but contrary to his normal emotionally closed bastard response, he found himself faced with the unusual and uncomfortable desire to fix whatever it was that put the pain in her eyes. “Andy, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said as he watched her slam up barriers faster than a bivouac.

She shrugged out of his grip and he debated whether to let her go or force a confrontation. Her expression had hardened into something resolute, the flash of pain he’d witnessed shoved way out of view. As someone who’d dealt with more than his fair share of pain, he had to respect the self-preservation impulse. Didn’t mean he had to like it and for maybe the first time in his life, he wondered what it cost and whether it was worth the price.

“There’s nothing wrong,” she said, pulling him out of his thoughts and sliding back into the woman in charge persona he’d come to expect. “We’re finished here. Why don’t you go see if Millie needs help?” She opened the faucet full blast, dismissing him and his questions.

––––––––

ANDY NEVER MEANT to let him get so close. Making soap with Liam was supposed to knock him off-balance, not make her want to open up and let him inside her carefully constructed walls. He already thought she was some kind of naïve do-gooder. She could see it when he looked at her. He was equal parts fascinated and smugly self-righteous. Like he knew all about the real world and she had no idea what it was like outside her idyllic little farm.

She’d watched him put her up on some kind of altruistic pedestal. He might think he knew a hell of a lot more than she did—he’d seen things she couldn’t imagine so in that way, he was probably justified. But for as much as he thought he was smarter than she was, more worldly, he also thought she was better, more good, less damaged than him. He was dead wrong about both. What would happen if he found out the truth? The image he’d built would crumble into a hole in the ground, leaving her with nothing but rubble.

It had taken her a long damn time and a small fortune to come to terms with the person she’d been before Sourwood. Everything had been different before she heard about the farm. Back when she’d been Andrea instead of Andy, with money to burn and a stock trader’s floor worth of balls to bust. Money was power and she’d had plenty of both. She’d been the youngest hottest securities broker at Bench and Stern with a sales portfolio that made the men in the firm green with envy and the CFO willing to give her anything she wanted. She wore her power like a finely tailored Dolce and Gabbana suit, with a pair of YSL pumps as punctuation.

She’d considered it a point of pride that they called her a bitch behind her back. Hell, back then, she wouldn’t have minded if they said it to her face. When it came to making deals, she was ruthless and damn proud of it. Empathy was for people who couldn’t cut it. Some days she’d have happily sold her soul if it raised her quota averages a couple of points.

She’d known more than anyone in any room she walked into. Her razor-sharp mind and ruthless drive made rising to the top of the food chain child’s play. If she hadn’t had any family to speak of—no one to keep her human—what did it matter? She’d had all the friends money could buy. She’d done deal after deal, skirting the line of legality without ever slipping over it. Never mind the people involved; she didn’t even see them. And consciences were for pussies. That changed the day Millie and her husband showed up in Andy’s office.

Shuddering, Andy turned off the water and dried the plastic pitchers with one of the terry cloth towels before stacking them in the metal cabinet. She hated to think about who she’d been and what would have happened to her if she’d never met Millie. But the part she hated more was that despite the fact that she’d single-handedly stolen everything the older couple had, she’d do it all over again rather than risk staying where she was—following the path she’d been on to its inevitable end. And that more than anything showed that regardless of all the ways she’d tried to atone for her past sins, she still was at heart a selfish person. She could spend the rest of her life and several lifetimes afterward trying to make amends and it still wouldn’t wash her clean.

She’d seen the vets wracked with guilt for the things they’d done in combat. She’d felt their pain, but they had one thing she’d never have. Everything they’d done, all the violence they’d been part of, it had all been done for something bigger than them. That’s why they called it serving, because despite how it might feel from the inside, they served the greater good. She’d only served herself.

She tucked everything away, taking extra time to straighten the molds, even going so far as folding the dirty towels. Everything she’d done since she’d bought the farm had been an effort to make things from her previous life right. She could accept that she might never get there, but it wasn’t going to stop her from trying. What she couldn’t do was face Liam and his questions, which meant the house was off-limits for the moment. Walking in on him and Millie engaged in some kind of mutual lovefest was more than her fragile peace could withstand.

It was going to rain. In a couple of hours, everyone would be back from the fields and she’d be surrounded by too much noise to get lost in her introspection. And she’d have a better chance of avoiding Liam and his wandering hands. He hadn’t done more than cup her cheek, and her body melted. Giving him a chance to do more was dangerous, and she hadn’t forgotten his promise to revisit whatever it was that happened between them. Her body might be conflicted about his touch but she wasn’t. Or she was but it didn’t matter; the end result was the same. She had no intention of going to the house until there was a big multi-body buffer between her and the sexy, too-perceptive pain in the ass man with the great eyes and even better hands.

In the meantime, there was another job she could take care of and maybe someone else she could save.